


Not a Typical Broken Arm

by AnaNovak (mxrvelled)



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-05
Updated: 2015-06-05
Packaged: 2018-04-02 22:45:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4076623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mxrvelled/pseuds/AnaNovak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been a long time since anyone has seen Bucky, after the events at Washington, D.C. At this point, almost everyone but Steve has given up hope that he's ever going to return. Especially Tony, which is why it is particularly surprising that the aforementioned genius is the first one to see their missing person.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not a Typical Broken Arm

**Author's Note:**

> As mentioned in the tags, this work takes place about a year after the events of the movie "Captain America: the Winter Soldier" as produced by Marvel Entertainment. This company holds all rights to the characters and setting of this work.

It was raining, which annoyed Tony.

It was too dark, which annoyed Tony.

The fact that he was annoyed annoyed Tony.

Most of all, the fact that he was feeling rather hungover annoyed Tony. This event led to the next sequence, just as it did most every other day. Tony, the ubiquitous denier of his own residual drinking problem, lumbered down from his bedroom to grab himself another drink. The throbbing that pounded in his head intensified as the bright lights that illuminated the bar area came into view; Tony struggled momentarily with his instinct to flee back into the less-painful dark, but the compel of the idea of a drink won over.

Snatching a bottle of Jameson whiskey, the genius leaned against the smooth, cold countertop of the bar. Closing his eyes in relief as he sipped right from the bottle, he ran his free hand through his spiky, dark hair, freeing it from the sweat that sheened his brow.

When he luxuriantly opened his eyes Tony startled, the bottle jolting up so that a few drops of the liquor splashed up onto the front of his Black Sabbath tee shirt. He wet his lips with the tip of his tongue, hardly believing that what he was seeing was real. _It had been months since anyone had seen him_ , Tony reminded himself, but he really couldn’t deny that he was in fact seeing their own “missing person” standing timidly in a shadowed corner of the living room. The genius could hardly recognize the man, with the dark spread of a beard growing ruggedly across his jaw and the dark hair that obscured his face, but it really was him.

James Buchanan Barnes, in Tony’s living room, his metal arm glinting affirmatively in the pale light that filtered through the windows.

Tony took a step forward, almost afraid to startle the spectral figure into stepping away, as if the man could disappear in the blink of an eye. After all, it had appeared that he had entered that way. Tony opened his mouth, then closed it again, unsure of what to say being as a debatably-dead assassin was standing in a corner of his living room.

After a few seconds of almost ominous silence, Bucky spoke. As soon as his voice stumbled into existence, his glance flickered down. He inclined his chin towards his prosthetic arm, which was dangling limply at his side, and his voice was rough from disuse as he mumbled, “It’s broken, and I can’t figure out how to fix it this time.”

“Uh,” Tony stuttered, still afflicted with shock, before his instincts kicked in. “Do you know how to take it off?” The ex-assassin (or so Tony assumed, he might still be an assassin, but that was the least of his concerns) shook his head solemnly, ducking his head further, as if he assumed he would be reprimanded.

“Well, then, follow me. I’ll fix it up in my workshop,” the Avenger offered, tossing back another gulp of the Jameson whiskey back before he turned and sauntered off to the workshop. Bucky followed silently behind him, the soles of his battered boots treading almost silently on the hard floors of the building. Tony hardly dared to look back; if he had any sense of how to get the man to stay, he wouldn’t want to scare him off, and at the moment, he seemed… unstable, to say the least.

Surely, the ghost of a man trailed just behind Tony as Tony busied himself in the workshop. He collected a few screwdrivers, pliers, and wire-cutters before he remembered he wasn’t the only one there. He cleared off a space on the countertop, sweeping papers onto the floor. “Y’can sit, if ya want,” the machinist offered, nodding toward that cleared space. The slurred tone emphasized by the drink was already becoming apparent in the tone.

Obediently, Bucky sat on the counter. The way he sat slumped forward, his shoulders hunched, made his long, tangled hair hang dejectedly in his face. The black army jacket he wore looked like it didn’t quite fit; based on how his hand was, the veins blue and prominent and the bones seemingly stretched tight into the skin, he’d lost weight. Not that Tony had ever seen the man in his primest health, but based on photos he’d seen Steve looking at, he’d been broad and muscular before Hydra- hell, even during Hydra.

One sleeve of the jacket was absent, like from the uniform he’d seen the Winter Soldier (for really, the Winter Soldier was just as separate an entity from Bucky as the Vision was from Jarvis) wearing from footage of the incident at the Potomac. His metal arm was strikingly… exposed, like this.

Tony stepped closer towards where Bucky sat, He marvelled at the intricacies of the metal prosthetic; the way its texture rippled and changed like muscle. It really was a work of aesthetics, while beautiful, it was also beautifully, terribly effective. The red star on the side that had been so prominent, like a brand, only a year ago was now gone; scratches on the metal made it appear that Bucky had scratched it off, perhaps with a knife.

Snapping himself out of his reverie, Tony worked his fingertip around where metal joined with flesh; only the pucker of a scar marked the meld. “Son of a bitch,” Tony mumbled, more impressed than annoyed. Whoever had done the work of attaching the arm had done it well, especially considering that the arm had been put on in the forties. The seam was almost flawless; there were no obvious control panel inserts or other indications of wiring. As he spread his fingers over the underside of the shoulder, Tony noticed a tiny latch and a key insert. He lifted the arm; Bucky made no resistance. He twisted a screwdriver in the insert and the panel sprung open.

The wiring of the arm was intricate, to say the least. It was also very, very waterlogged. Taking a moment to pause at the oddity of the situation, then pulled out a control board from the arm. After a moment of inspection, the machinist deemed it unsalvageable; he turned back to Bucky. “This is gonna take a little while than it might… there’s a lot of water damage.”

For the first time in a few minutes, Bucky spoke up. “After the fight on the helicarrier, when Steve and I… he was drowning, so I dragged him out. I remember it now- I remember everything.”

Suddenly, everything clicked in Tony’s mind. It _was_ Bucky who had left Steve on the beach of the river after the battle- there’d always been rumors about it happening that way, but no actual proof. Steve remembered nothing but swore it had to have been Bucky.

“That’d do it,” the Avenger mumbled, more to himself than to Bucky. “The water damage… it’ll need new wiring… the control’s shot…”

He tinkered around the panel for a few more minutes before he straightened up, tucking the wiring neatly back into Bucky’s arm. “Hold on a moment, I need to go make a call. Make yourself comfortable.”

The dark-haired man turned and walked out of the workshop, already slipping his phone out of his pocket. Opening the contact list, he scrolled through and selected a certain number, then held up the phone.

“Hey, Steve? I’m gonna need you to come down here… yes, I know it’s three in the morning. Just, get down here, I think I’ve got something you need to see.”


End file.
